KU basketball, volleyball squads team up for a break from the grind and a few laughs

By Matt Tait     Apr 29, 2022
    •

article image
The Kansas volleyball team practices on a new Taraflex floor featuring the Jayhawk logo at the new Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019.

Two of the most successful University of Kansas athletic teams from the current school year got together for a little combined fun on Thursday, with the KU volleyball team and men’s basketball stepping into each other’s worlds for a brief moment.

Near the tail end of an offseason workout for both teams, several men’s basketball players and a chunk of KU volleyball players competed against each other in their specific sports.

For the hoops portion of things, the KU volleyball women showed off their shooting touch and picked up pointers from several current hoops stars.

On the volleyball court, the two squads scrimmaged, with the KU men quickly realizing that their athleticism and ability to play way above the net did not actually translate to success.

Still, from the videos and photos that surfaced from the fun, it was pretty wild to see some of the KU men soaring that high above the net.

Everyone knows what the men’s basketball team did earlier this month in New Orleans, bringing home the school’s sixth national championship with wins over Villanova and North Carolina at the Final Four. But some may have forgotten that the KU women’s volleyball team made a nice run of its own last fall, reaching the Sweet 16 before bowing out of the NCAA Tournament.

Both programs are a big part of what first-year KU AD Travis Goff said he hoped would be the standard for the department and the type of success that all of KU’s programs aspire to have.

But it was fun to see that, as much as they like to lock in and get serious on most days, both programs were able to take a little break from the regular grind to have some fun.

Truth be told, there was some surprisingly good form shown by players from both sides in the opposite sport.

Of course, it helped the KU men’s hoops team that it was allowed to play with eight players (vs. six for the KU women) and that one of them was volleyball assistant Billy Ebel, who kept things organized and could actually set a ball so the basketball guys could swing away.

According to two KU staff members who were there, the men’s basketball team was spotted a 9-0 lead in the one official game the two teams played after a little warm-up time. And the KU women pulled out a 16-14 victory.

Here’s a look at some of the fun…

PREV POST

Former Kansas guard Aniya Thomas transferring to Missouri State
NEXT POST

56743KU basketball, volleyball squads team up for a break from the grind and a few laughs
Author Photo

Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.